Community Perspective
Plastic bags add up quickly
Bag fees discourage bad choice
Published Thursday, October 8, 2009
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Stumble It!The problem of single-use plastic grocery bags seems trivial until we add up the bags we carry home annually in Fairbanks. The 2008 census counted 97,484 people in the borough, living in 36,105 households. Assuming each household makes a weekly trip to the store and leaves with six new plastic bags, each household consumes 324 bags per year. Add a few more for the odd Saturday errand and holiday shopping, and household consumption averages about 400 bags. The math tells us we use more than 14,000,000 plastic bags per year.
Fourteen million bags, just in our borough, and that’s just grocery bags.
If that figure doesn’t bother you, consider how many we’d use if we carried on this way for decades. Do we really want hundreds of millions of disposable plastic bags in the landfill or tens of thousands blowing over the tundra?
A century ago, shoppers regularly carried what we call reusable bags. Paper bags were an efficient innovation, until we realized how they gobbled up trees (14 million trees made 10 billion paper bags for Americans in 1999). Plastic bags were introduced in the 1970s. They were convenient, sturdy and lightweight, and we loved them instantly. Since then, almost every one we’ve ever taken home is still here, in one form or another, in our homes, landfill and environment.
Plastic is amazingly hard-wearing and long-lasting, but these properties make it a poor choice for disposable items. Plastic grocery bags don’t decompose. Covered up in the landfill, they don’t photodegrade. Where light gets to them, they break down into tiny toxic pieces throughout hundreds of years, but they never go away.
We can reduce solid waste, litter, non-renewable resource consumption (plastic bags are made from petroleum, natural gas or coal) and post-consumption recycling headaches by using reusable bags. It’s an easy investment in resource efficiency, waste reduction and a cleaner environment for future generations.
So, why impose a fee on ourselves when people of goodwill will champion reusable bags anyway? If stores stopped giving away bags tomorrow, we’d all carry reusable bags. But they won’t. Wal-Mart, Fred Meyer and Safeway all have plans to reduce the use of disposable bags, but not now and not in the forseeable future.
Changing habits isn’t easy. If it was, we’d all exercise, stick to our diets, quit smoking and drink less soda, wine and spirits. Imposing a fee irritates us out of our comfort zone, like the doctor’s warning about your cholesterol. Charging for bags will make people hesitate before taking one. Ireland’s 15-cent fee reduced plastic bag use by 90 percent in one year, from roughly 328 to 21 bags per person. The Fairbanks ordinance calls for a nickel because it’s small enough not to be a burden and high enough to be an incentive. Fred’s puts a similar value on bags, giving you a nickel for every reusable bag you use; Safeway gives three cents back.
People say the fee will cause hassles in the checkout line. The Australian Retailers Association said a fee adds three to five seconds per 10 items (i.e. per bag), but I’d bet money that Fairbanks’ retailers will whittle those seconds down to zero in no time.
People say disposable bags are handy as trash, poop, lunch, diaper and book bags, and they are. If you think they’re indispensible, they’re probably worth the nickel. If not, alternative ideas are a creative thought or two away.
People say a fee will generate more plastic waste because we’ll start buying heavier bags to line wastebaskets. They’ve underestimated plastic bag makers, who have already produced lightweight bags. They’re on the shelves now.
People say grocery bags are recyclable, which is sort of true. The box stores all provide recycling bins, but nationally (and likely locally) only 3 percent are returned for recycling. And stores don’t purchase disposable bags made with recycled material. If they did, we wouldn’t be having this discussion.
Some people have fretted that the bag fee will add to bureaucracy and waste in borough government. It won’t. It won’t require any new borough staffing. Stores making more than a million dollars per year in our community will adjust their bookkeeping, charge customers for plastic bag use and cut a monthly check to the borough. The recycling commission will use the income to fund a real, permanent recycling program for the first time ever.
This means a little nickel can do a lot of good, and BYOB can have a brand new meaning in the Far North.
Susan McInnis is a long time resident of Fairbanks, and an avid recycler. The Borough Assembly expects to reconsider the bag fee ordinance at tonight’s meeting.
Community Discussion
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Is being an "avid recycler" another term for being a dumpster diver?
First, I'd like to commend the writer for attempting to use facts and data, but the end argument is still an emotional plea and does not bear up under close scrutiny.
Some facts (but definately not all):
1. Tens of thousands of bags are not blowing across the tundra.
2. ALL matter remains "here, in one form or another" unless it is converted into energy.
3. Tiny pieces of plastic bags are NOT toxic. In a landfill, these pieces will sit there just like gravel - stabilizing the soil and degrading just like the other minerals present.
4. 3% recycling rate is a false number - debunked by the writer herself. Everyone of these bags is recycled in our household for other uses - mostly trash bags. Take away those grocery bags and we'll replace them other PLASTIC bags. Net effect on the environment? ZERO.
5. We are NOT in danger of running out of landfill space here in Fairbanks. At our present rate of usage of plastic grocery bags, we'll run out of room here AK in about 1.73 bazillion years.
6. Recycling programs are a complete feel good exercise - especially here. The only thing of value is aluminum, because it can actually be turned back into a can. Everything else is downgraded. Also, we're dealing with chicken and egg here. We don't have recycling facilities here - so we'll need to ship all the stuff out of here. And how good for the environment is that?
7. And finally, if we're into passing feel good ordinances, let's also require everyone to do 10 jumping jacks before we pay for our groceries, because it's good for us and it'll reduce everyone's health care costs. If don't do it, you'll required to give the borough $1. Because it's about your good health, not government intrusiveness.
no power, it's another name for tree hugging hippie that doesn't bathe!
Gondar, I was going to go on a rant but I think you about covered it. I really like your jumping jack idea! Vote it in!
This bag tax thing is just wrong on every possible level. Vote it out!
i have bags full of bags under my kitchen sink. i reuse them for many things
"A century ago, shoppers regularly carried what we call reusable bags. Paper bags were an efficient innovation, until we realized how they gobbled up trees (14 million trees made 10 billion paper bags for Americans in 1999). Plastic bags were introduced in the 1970s. They were convenient, sturdy and lightweight, and we loved them instantly."
If the tax stays we will collectively go back in time a decade, not a century, and start using paper bags again. I already asked Fred Meyer and Safeway and they will both have free paper bags available. Not only are they convenient but I can recycle them at home as I start my wood stove. Sounds like a win, win for me.
gondar:
Tiny pieces of plastic are toxic to the animals who eat them and do you really want to eat an animal that has been eating plastic? Sounds delicious!
There is a difference between recycling and reusing. Recycling implies that the bags will be recycled into another product be it bags, decking, or other such items. What you are suggesting is reusing and if you reuse a bag to pick up poop you can bet that you're probably not going to use that bag several more times. This reduces the "lifespan" of that bag and it still ends up in the landfill in a short period of time.
It's not necessarily a matter of filling up our landfills - bags add to the size of the landfill yes but we are more concerned with all the bags blowing around town. Don't believe me? Go drive by lathrop high school on cowles and check out all the plastic bag trash lining their fence, so classy!
You want a bag tax? I'm alright with that.
Put it up for a vote. By the people.
Our public servants are not in a position to decide this on their own. I know, "It's just a little ole' bag tax. I mean, it's not that big of a deal..." Bull! It sets a precedent that is disturbingly dangerous.
Learn your place, public servants, or I'm sure your constituents will be happy to put you there.
Remember when the sales clerk asked: "plastic or paper"? Take plastic to save a tree was the montra! So, now plastic is the curse, how things do change with the times? What will it be tomorrow? This whole "big deal" over plastic bags is B.S.& will change when the "wind shifts direction". In other words: "much to do about nothing"! This bag tax is a nose under the tent, the next will be a $100 charge on wood stoves, $50 for a license to operate it. Then what $50 for each gun you own?
We must stop this "taxes by the inch"
and stop it now!
Here's how to solve the problem (mostly) and pay for it (mostly):
Charge a 5-cent/bag tax and pay a 10-cent/bag refund.
Prospector - if I can return the plastic bags full of cat poop it would ba win-win for me.
Kritho, if the bags at Lathrop bother you so much, go pick them up. Now that would be classy!
Sisu, right on. It's the camel's nose. Why, the cap and trade nonsense is already a tax on your exhaling--next they'll tax you for inhaling.
"next they'll tax you for inhaling"
But Bill Clinton didn't inhale. Does that mean he'd get a tax break?
Put it to a VOTE!!!!
I hear there is room on the November run-off ballot. Or we can elect someone who hates this idea and will kill it.
I would love to see the country go to non-plastic forms of packaging. I hate using a chainsaw and blowtorch to open some of the packaging:)
I also started to believe that checkers and baggers at the grocery store were being paid by the bag! I do not need 2 item per bag. Or items placed in bags to be placed in other bags. My milk doesn't need a bag, it comes with a handle. My bales of toilet paper and paper towels have good wrappers on them- ever try to break into a new one under the sink with one hand in an 'emergency'? :)
I agree- stop all the creeping taxes.
Now my advice for those who die, (taxman)
Declare the bags beneath your eyes. (taxman)
'Cause I'm the taxman,
Yeah, I'm the taxman.
And you're working for no one but me.
Taxman!
"Some people have fretted that the bag fee will add to bureaucracy and waste in borough government. It won’t. It won’t require any new borough staffing."
OH YES IT WILL - AND< they will need a new financial program to handle the tracking and distribution of the funding. AND, they don't have anyplace to put the person that will be doing all this work.
You spoke WAY out of line on this particular issue.
TAC, BC would definitely get a tax break, he's one of the elitists who only exhales (oxygen deprived). Plus some say he already has an old bag, so he won't get hit with the bag tax.
You and I won't get a tax break regardless, since we have no sense of humor.
Griz, the point is that it's there and it's mostly plastic, not that someone needs to clean it up. Reduce the number of plastic bags, reduce the amount of trash everywhere.
Solution: pay a 10-cent per bag refund (or bounty). These bags blowing around will disappear in about one week.
Susan has it right, and while advocating simple, modest efforts of conservation and recycling gets the typical scorn and insults one expects from Fairbanks redneck community. I would hate to see how they would react when REAL conservation standards become reality.
alaska4obama, your screen name says it all...
'Scorn and insults'? Hmmm, sounds pretty thin-skinned to me, especially with all the name calling you liberals hurl at us un-American, gun clinging, swastika carrying, racist rednecks.
If I'm a redneck for refusing to pay a tax (no matter how small) to generate money for yet another government program (that doesn't even exist yet, by the way), then so be it. Taxes should not be imposed upon us without a vote of the people.
alaska4obama (gawd, it hurts to type that name) -- "Fairbanks redneck community"
That's classism, which is no different than racism, thus constitutes hate speech. The proper name for this demographic is "Alaskan-American".
Thanks Mike- "Can't think for themselves" I was listening to KFAR on election day, Donna Gilbert was on the air with Mr. Dukes, it was in the afternoon and they were alarmed that voter turnout might be on the low side. They said whatever you do, get out and vote. "And if you don't know how to vote, and haven't done your research vote the ITA list for recommended candidates". No kidding. Don't think for yourself, let the ITA do it for you.
i think i'll go shopping--
paper or plastic?
plastic please.
Mike_Jayne
Don't fool yourself into thinking your life isn't pointless too...you're a crybaby wannabe liberal living in a redneck town. If you were as intelligent as you imagine, you'd move somewhere where 'progressive' intolerance predominates...of course there wouldn't be any jobs there...because your taxes and your hatred for investment, development, and profit would see to it. Modern 'progessivism' is what is wrong with America. Do you imagine that you haven't had your opinions spoon-fed to you by Hollywood, PBS, NPR, and so many Michael Moores? You're a hypocritical dolt exactly like all the other 'progressives' masquerading as liberals. Kit people we call you. Right. Plastic is the scourge of mankind. Mining is morally bankrupt. Oil and gas are evil. Profit-making is doubly so. Yet the entirety of your life is replete with these products and the lifestyle you enjoy is a product of them. From your precious Mac-Book, to your alpine skis, to the Thule box and Subaru that surely transports them...and the gas you use to do it...your lifestyle is made possible by the products of entrepreneurship...investment and profit. It's made possible by mining, and fuel, and oil which make possible the production of everything you know. Your world-view has been made possible by generations of American soldiers who have given their lives to make certain you could sit at your computer and say anything you please. What do you do with that privilege? You bite the hand that feeds you. You run down everything we love, know, and are. 'Progessives' are anything but.
Let's look at past taxing practices and their effects on social engineering:
Alcohol tax: How many stopped drinking ?
The cigarette tax: How many stopped smoking ?
Property Tax: How many moved out of the borough ?
Income tax: How many quit working ?
The answers are: Not very many.
Why do you think a bag tax will be much different ?
People like Susan McInnis will continue bringing her reusable bags.
Most people will just get the bags, pay the tax, and think little of it. Like a sales tax it's just a cost of living.
Some, like me, will get angry at people like Susan McInnis, the other bag lady, Nadine, and the bag boy, Luke, for supporting their amateur effort at social engineering to change the quality of life, and freedom I enjoy in Fairbanks, even if it's only a little bit.
I will continue to use the bags to scoop dog poop, pack lunches in, and do whatever I do with them in a responsible fashion.
I'm thinking of making a doll out of plastic bags, with a Luke or Nadine face on it. When I'm done with it I'll responsibly dispose of it in the dumpster.
A few, a very few,people will stop using the bags.
Susan, why do most people, use plastic garbage bags to dispose of their garbage ? Why are they so commonly used ? Why do we see hundreds of them, on the side of the road on clean up day in the spring? What do you use, when your picking up trash on the side of the road where you live ?
Please show me, even one little toxic piece that has lasted one hundred years. Some of the plastic bags I get deteriorate even before I get them home. Gotta double bag the canned goods.
BTW -
The United States Census is a decennial census mandated by the United States Constitution. The last national census was held in 2000 and the next census is scheduled for 2010. There was no census in 2008.
Also, 6 times 52 is 312.
I know they add up, I stash them under the kitchen sink for reuse later, where the heck do these supposed "flying bags" come from? It's the cornerstone to this argument and I honestly didn't see one on the way in to work today...
The letter is written on a farce with "good intentions".
I use both types of bags, plastic and have a bunch of reusable ones as well. I think actually doing a proper recycling program would be the way to go. This silly tax for a plastic bag... Why do you want to do something rather controversial as this. I also re-use almost ALL my plastic bags as trash bags for small cans or in my camper. I know lots of folks use them as "pooper-scoopers". So I don;t think it's a waste issue at all. I think it's someone wanting to generate money for a program that should be thought out logically instead of off the hip. Just my 2 cents.
How about all of you shutting off your computers -- getting off your derrière's and going down to the Fairbanks North Star Borough tonight and nicely tell your elected representives in no uncertain terms -- thanks, but no thanks to another tax -- when many in this area are barely making a go of it in the present ecconomy.
If the bags are so evil, ban them. I'll vote for an ordinace to ban stores from using plastic bag and gladly go back to paper and like Justin use them to start my woodstove.
If the borough wants more money, which is what this is really about, tough. Maybe they need to take a line from their citizenry and learn to deal with the times like the rest of us have. How many people in the borough got a smaller raise this year, no raise at all, took a pay cut, or worse yet, lost a job? How many people do you think walked into their boss’ office this year and demanded more money because their expenses had gone up? Maybe the borough should start living in the real world like the rest of us. Stop asking people who are already strained for more money and learn how to better use the money you are getting. If just about every household around has had to do it, why can’t you?
Susan thanks for taking the time to voice your opinion. I think that we (Fairbanksans) can do better. Next time you are in line reaching for a candy bar, etc., buy one of those reusable bags instead; then use it.
It is to early to tell if our bag lady says in office or not!
Hay, Suzie! This is Fairbanks! Not Ireland.
Some of her bio!
http://www.google.com/search?q=Susan+McI...
Suse, your thoughts have always been measured and provocative. You are a true community resource. Thanks for a thoughtful LTE.
There are worse things going to the landfill than plastic bags. The world today runs on batteries - lithium, lead-acid, ni-cad -- and I have yet to find any program which ensures these truly toxic items stay out of the landfill -- except for recyclable vehicle batteries, sometimes -- or are at least isolated from the water table.
The whole bag issue is symbolic. It appeals to many on both environmental and aesthetic grounds. So it is a popular political issue. But, what are we to do with this bucket full of used batteries from flashlights, radios, mp3 players, TV remotes, portable shavers, shop tools, medical devices, computers, boom boxes, etc.?
The bags, while ubiquitous as they are ugly, are not nearly as toxic as batteries. Further, for sheer waste of plastic/petroleum products, there is enough raw material in a 1-gallon milk jug, or a case of 1-liter soda bottles, or a plastic paint bucket, or a 1-gallon anti-freeze jug (the list goes on) to make hundreds of bags -- maybe thousands. Yet somehow those one-time-use items do not seem to matter. Or will we start to tax those as well? The fact is, plastic grocery bags are recyclable; and if we do not get them at the store when we buy our groceries, many people will buy plastic trash can liners, use them once, and toss them. While it is probably true that this will mean fewer are blowing in the wind, the bags will still be out there. It is an aesthetic/environmental issue with broad but shallow appeal.
Meanwhile batteries, tens of thousands a year, go to the landfill. On balance, batteries in the landfill is not a very populist issue, but it seems the effects will be far more lasting. Where is the outrage?
All it would take to reduce the bag consumption by over 50% is to train the lazy baggers/cashiers in this town to put more then a candy bar and a pack of bologna in one bag. Last time I shopped I came home with bags that had only 1 litre bottle of soda in it. They put my kids 2 candy bars in a bag all to themselves. I walked out with 15 bags when i should have had about 6 tops if they knew how to pack them. And dont give me that crap about how hard they work. The ladies that manually rang up my moms groceries in the prehistoric days and then bagged those goods so well you could stack the brown bags like cordwood. These pups slide the goodie past a barcode scanner and dump it into a bag hanging on a rack and you have to load it in the cart yourself. How pitiful the total degredation of customer service in this lame day and age of the liberal nutcakes....
alaska4obama and Mike_Jayne-
If you travel on Airport Rd. toward Ft. WW and away from the airport, turn right on the Richardson Hwy. If you continue down that road, it will be possible for you to distance yourself from us ignorant, redneck, unable to think for ourselves Fairbanksans. Good luck, bro.
maybe we should all start driving on the left side of the road tomorrow. don't they do that in europe too!!! And if your so in-bare-assed over your relatives then don't invite them back!! we did'nt particularly care for them either. what were they europeeing or straightoutatrailerpark in compton?? right away you lost me with the old they do it in eugrope thing . as for our town,like the song says,if you don't like what you see here"get the funk out"
did't you pay attention in history class we either been kickin their butts or bailing them out for over 200yrs nobody worth their salt gives a rats you know what for what a europeon thinks or does.maybe your buddy a_ _es4obamhahaha does!
@ chris bollinger like your post,especially the last two sentences.
Plastic didn't replace paper because it's more environmentally friendly, it's more a matter of plastic bags being cheaper than paper bags. Paper bags are usually made from recycled paper products or quick growing pulp trees, such as poplar. Unlike plastic, when some slob litters paper bags, they don't blow around around for months, and quickly decompose as soon as they get wet.
Brian:
Actually paper bags are NEVER made out of recycled paper. From what I have researched, they are made out of virgin paper because it is sturdier. Other forms of paper or different types of paper bags (not those we find in the grocery check out line) do use recycled paper, but not in this case.
And the issue to "save trees" likely did play a role in switching to plastic, because at the time that seemed like the better option. Plus there are a lot more chemicals and processing put into a paper bag than a plastic bag. So, processing wise, plastic is in some ways better, but uses a non-renewable resource. After they are thrown in the trash though, you are correct that the paper will actually biodegrade, whereas the plastic did not.
sloughrunner, thanks. You made my day. I literally laughed until I cried. Well said, my friend.
Alaskan_1980,
One of my old professors had a saying, "Never is almost never right, and always is almost always wrong."
Please do some more research on your statement that "paper bags are NEVER made out of recycled paper." A cursory Dogpile (I don't use Google because of their political agenda) search reveals quite the opposite.
maybe, if we step up our use of non-biodegradeable products, we can eventually raise fairbanks above the level of the temperature inversion. we can all huddle on a pedestal of garbage and breathe fresh clean air. the spongy mountain should also moderate the effect of earth quakes. so now that the bag tax is a non issue, i guess i'll ask the check-out person to double bag me.
i'm proud to call myself a "redneck". however... i keep canvas bags in my trunk and use them every time I go shopping. This includes trips to Home Depot and other "non-grocery" stores. It's easy to do, people. And you get $.05 credit for each bag! the random plastic bags i do pick up line my bathroom trash can. you don't have to be a greenie to be earth-conscious.
"What you are suggesting is reusing and if you reuse a bag to pick up poop you can bet that you're probably not going to use that bag several more times. This reduces the "lifespan" of that bag and it still ends up in the landfill in a short period of time."
However reusing the bag means that another plastic bag, for picking up poo, isn't needed, made or purchased. Thus reusing the bags does more to save the environment more than a tax would.
"Reduce the number of plastic bags, reduce the amount of trash everywhere."
Sooo... taxing bags will stop smokers from dropping their buts in the parking lot? Or stop people from throwing their fast food trash out the car window? Or prevent drunks from breaking their empty glass bottles on the sidewalk? If trash is the issue, we need to let people know that it is NOT ok to use the whole outside as their personal trash can. Plastic bags are the least of the problem. I'd support a $500 littering fine, but not a $0.05 bag tax.
AKGRIZ -
Thanks for taking that out of context. I did specify my statement to state that I was referring to the paper bags at grocery stores, the ones meant to hold a lot of weight and be durable. That is why they are made out of virgin paper, the recycled paper is simply too weak. I'm sure there are plenty of types of paper bags that do have recycled paper, but not the kind we'll see in the grocery store. In fact, checking the very small number of paper bags I have at home, none say they are made of recycled fibers, just that they are recyclable. The point is that paper bags are also environmentally problematic, just like plastic. Preferably, neither would be used.
Alaskan_1980,
I didn't take it out of context. I was pointing out all someone has to do to diminish your argument is find a single exception--thus your use of the word "NEVER" damages your credibilty. Just trying to help ensure accuracy.
324 bags at .002" thick = .648".
That is less than 5/8" thick,...so the average mass that each family adds to the landfill annually = 12" x 12" x 5/8" thick.
I can live with this,...landfills will eventually become profitable, and these bags can be recycled then.
Ya, I remember paper bags!
As soon as they got damp, your groceries fell out bottom. Back then every thing was in glass bottles!
I gather from news reports our bag lady voted to keep the ordence; the rest voted dump it! Which goes to show some people do understand the meaning of the word: NO!
Next, Tuesday we will learn if the bag lady continues to represent herself and the UAF crew or if she learns the meaning for the word: FIRED!
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I'll still take a couple a paper bags that stand up, over a pile of plastic bags any day. I don't actually have any around anymore to see what the recycled content is. Either way pulp trees are a renewable resource, and grow pretty darn quick.
While I agree with recycling efforts and the need to do away with the "throw away culture" but I must say that plastic bags are among the least of our concerns.
If we want to do away with them than it’s as easy as simply banning them, not taxing them - all that dose is create an entirely new revenue stream for the government.
Should doctors wipe a syringe under their arm pit and recycle, or should they throw it away and get a sterile one.
Think of the dump as a collection site for recyclables.
A throw away culture keeps people working, and unless you come up with a better way to occupy the time of the unemployed then deal with the 'post consumer recycling'.
If you don't like the bags, don't use them. I will use them if I choose to. It is just another consumer option which most people are smart enough to make on their own with some high minded greenie nagging.
What scares me is a nanny state where every aspect of our lives are regulated, including plastic bag usage.
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